President Meloni’s speech at the Italy-UAE Business Forum

Good morning everyone, 

thank you again for being here, thank you for this high level of participation and, above all, I simply must start by expressing my sincere thanks to His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed – to my friend Mohamed – and all the delegation of the United Arab Emirates, a large delegation representing the government of the United Arab Emirates, for what I consider to be a historic day. 

We often use the word ‘historic’ to define things, sometimes wrongly, but this is one of those times when it is right to use the word historic. This meeting, this business forum, which marks another major milestone in the relationship between our nations, is taking place during the first State visit of a President of the United Arab Emirates to Italy. This is an opportunity to highlight how Italy and the United Arab Emirates have together decided to take their bilateral cooperation to an unprecedented level.

Today, we have signed more than 40 bilateral agreements, and we do not intend for our work to end here. I consider this to be an extremely important day, another starting point in our bilateral relationship. 

This deep cooperation will develop on several levels, transforming what were seemingly distant partners, or in any case partners with potentially divergent interests, into partners deciding to share a very important part of their journey together. We have made all this possible by sharing a new approach with President bin Zayed, and that is to try, together, to interpret the profound changes of our time with vision and courage and without being afraid to dare. We have already demonstrated this approach on many occasions, most recently with the decision to build, together with Albania, new energy infrastructure to connect the two shores of the Adriatic. We strongly believe in this ambitious initiative, as it is a tangible step in the direction of truly global interconnection, stretching from Asia to the Gulf, from North Africa to Europe, with the Mediterranean in the centre, which as you know is Italy’s main focus at this time.

The Mediterranean is also playing a key role in the development of IMEC, the infrastructure and economic corridor that will connect the port cities of India, the Middle East and Europe. This is also a strategic project, with Italy and the United Arab Emirates at the forefront, which we are pursuing together because of the potential it can unleash, especially for our economic sectors.

Today, we are laying another important building block in this common strategy. We are not alone on this journey. This Business Forum shows that we can count on the strength and vitality of our economic and financial systems, which believe, together with us, that a significant step forward in our relations can offer huge potential for both.

As you know, Italy is already the UAE’s second largest European partner, national exports are growing at a robust pace and investments by our companies in the Emirati economy have grown by 50% over the last five years. I obviously consider these figures to be very significant, as they show that we already get on very well working together and I think, actually I am certain, that from today we will do so even more and better.

Clearly, I can only welcome with great satisfaction the United Arab Emirates’ commitment to invest USD 40 billion in Italy. This is undoubtedly one of the largest and most significant foreign investments in our nation’s history and clearly demonstrates extraordinary trust and friendship towards Italy, its production system and its economy.

We have chosen to focus this cooperation on strategic priorities, i.e., looking to the future, because we want to work on a long-term basis, we want our cooperation to have a long and stable horizon. We want to focus this work on issues that will be of key importance in the years to come, so from the development of artificial intelligence to data centres, from the underwater domain to space research, from renewable energy to rare earths. We are of course also dealing with culture, starting with the project to create a large museum hub in the United Arab Emirates, and then there is the Mattei Plan for Africa, another major area of joint cooperation.

The United Arab Emirates, and Sheikh Mohamed in particular, were among the first to believe in and support this strategy of Italy’s for new and different cooperation with the African continent. The agreements we have signed will also enable us to increasingly and more effectively involve the private sector in this important strategy.

In short, I believe that today is truly an extraordinary day for Italy, for the United Arab Emirates, for our common work, for our friendship. We have written a wonderful, unprecedented chapter in our shared history, and I know we will write many others together. We will do so in the name of our friendship, but above all for the sake of the well-being and prosperity of our peoples and to try and lend a hand in a global scenario in need of certainties, at a time when certainties seem few and far between. My sincere thanks to His Highness, thank you for this demonstration of friendship, thank you for this extraordinary cooperation, thank you for what we have built together in just two years, but above all thank you for what we will build in the years to come. Thank you all, and all the best with your work.